Dinner at the Gross-Out Diner: Spider Sandwiches by Claire Freedman

COME EAT WITH MAX.

HE HAS A MONSTER APPETITE.

HE EATS SUCH YUCKY MUCKY FOOD,

HIS MEALTIMES ARE A FRIGHT!

After a home-cooked breakfast of toenail omelet and grasshopper leg smoothies,  Max orders some delicacies from the internet--space ants, and moon-goop globs--to tide himself over until lunch, when he tucks in to his rainbow lice and rice stirfry. (Better eat 'em before the lice jump off the plate!)

This disgusting gourmand gobbles globs of slimy, gooey glop, some his own creations from his favorite recipes from Squealia's Monster Cookbook and The Monsters' Cookbook-- his cookies have sprinkles (beetle bits), and his delicious side dishes, such as French-fried hairy bats' ears, hors d'oeuvres like squashed fly caviar on crackers or fish-eye finger foods--are famous. Rat-tail pizza is a treat, and blue mold chips are hard to beat.

Is there no comestible gruesome enough to make Max gag?

Well, there is one--the one thing that youngsters all seem to regard as barf bait!

BRUSSELS SPROUTS SOUP!

For surefire eeeeuuwws and yuucckkks from the preschool/primary crowd, Max's menu is certain to meet all expectations, in author Claire Freedman's just published Spider Sandwiches (Bloomsbury Press, 2014), with splendidly silly illustrations by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet. It's a beginner's gross-out appetizer before kids move on to seriously stomach-sloshing classic entrees such as Adam Rex's Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.

Claire Freedman's other "well-versed" best-sellers include Aliens Love Underpants, Dinosaurs Love Underpants (The Underpants Books), Aliens in Underpants Save the World (The Underpants Books), and Aliens Love Panta Claus.